(Adapted from Summer Sermon Series: ASK 2015 “Why Does God Allow Evil?”)
Most people ask “Why?” From our youngest years where we are beginning to use the mind God gave us, there is a desire to understand cause and effect. Why something does or doesn’t happen, why something is the way it is. We have inquisitive minds…is a God designed and a very beautiful thing. But the challenge is for mankind to use that inquisitive mind to desire truth, not just good ideas, not just some prevailing ideology or popular opinion…but actual truth…(i.e. just because Oprah say so does not make it truth! This is what Ravi Zacharias terms“…mass marketed spirituality” R. Zacharias)
So when we are confronted with the reality of terrible things currently happening or maybe in the past…we ask “Why?”
By the way…those who do not believe in the existence of God ask these same questions. They know something is just not right. For the ATHEIST…nothing can answer these questions. Why are children starving? Their answer… “why would there not be?” Why is there evil? “why not? For the professing atheist, with no higher authority to answer to…we are just a matter of chance, and if children are suffering…“C’est la vie!”…that’s life! In other words, we would have no reason to think that they shouldn’t be hungry. For the CHRISTIAN…on the other hand, many are afraid of these questions. Or we think we must limit God or try to defend God to explain why bad things happen. Sadly, many people use this as an excuse to reject or walk away from God because they do not like His answers. Others use these question to limit God or diminish God.
The question before us really is…a question about God’s character. It pre-supposes a belief in God…and that He is aware of mankind. And so if there is suffering God must be allowing it. If there is evil, then God is allowing that evil to happen. If bad things happen…then God must have a say in what happens. So the next question naturally becomes: Why does God allow human suffering? Why does God, who is a God of love…allow young children to starve to death or die of disease due to malnutrition? And finally, why does He not do something about it?
How could a loving God allow it? Many books have been written to try to explain what seems on the surface to be an irreconcilable problem… The Christian believer claims that God remains a God of love in the face of the evil, death, suffering and disease in this world. But if God is good and God is love…then why won’t He do something?…so He must not be as powerful as we think He is. Or maybe if God is truly all-powerful…and He chooses not to do anything…then how can He be a God of love and mercy?
Someone has said: that the major argument levelled against Christians goes something like this:
‘How can there be an all-powerful loving God when we see children dying, people suffering, and bad things happening to good people? Surely such suffering and evil means that either He is not powerful enough to prevent it or He doesn’t want to, so He is not totally good.”
First off let me say…God could eliminate hunger/evil if He so chose. Without a blink, He could. Jesus fed the 5000 and He healed diseases and even the most wicked demoniac. But why did He not obliterate hunger/evil/ when He walked on the earth? At one point in John 11 Judas criticized Mary for using an expensive perfume on Jesus when it could have been used to feed the poor/hungry…Jesus said “…the poor you will always have with you…”
In order to answer this question…we must go back to the root of it all and understand some foundational facts.
1.THE REALITY OF EVIL…
We often refer to evil as the bad things we see or read about in the news. Yet Theologians identify there is NATURAL EVIL…these are the destructive forces of nature.disasters, viruses, tornadoes, disease, earthquakes and famines…
2. WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF EVIL/DISEASE/SICKNESS/HUNGER?
We must go back to creation…original design. In Genesis we have the first man, Adam, he represents the entire human race. When God created Adam, He gave Adam the entire Garden of Eden to live. God created everything in perfect working order. And He told Adam you got the Garden but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But then Adam chose to sin…when he ate of the tree to which God had clearly stated “Do not eat of that tree…” Adam rebelled against God, by disobeying His clear Word of instruction…in essence…Adam told God that he wanted life without God. He (and thus we) wanted autonomy…to be independent of God. By the way, man is still doing this today…rejecting God’s authority for his own autonomy/independence.
It is a sobering thought…that if God gave us what we really asked for in Adam…total independence…and God completely leaves the picture. We couldn’t even exist… as He is before all things and in Him all things consist … and that He “…holds all things together by the power of His Word…”.
As a righteous God, He had to judge rebellion…He judged sin with death (spiritual and physical). God cursed the ground…every weed you pull from your garden is a reminder of the curse…every natural disaster, malnourished child, every sickness, disease and death, every bee sting, every evil that has ever been committed… and as a result the entirety, the whole of creation now groans because of sin…
And by the way…God had every right to completely destroy Adam and Eve for their rebellion. He could have easily wiped them out and started again. But why didn’t He? Grace, God’s amazing grace! Now everything groans…things get old, bodies wear out and tend to get run down or fall apart. We actually live in a world where we have a taste of what life is like without God…every time we watch or read the news we are reminded of what life is like without God…the death, suffering, evil, etc. But here is some good news.
3. GOD IS SOVEREIGN…OVER EVIL…GOD IS IN CHARGE…ABSOLUTELY!
Just consider some of these passages as you slowly read over them. Ask yourself who is in control of evil?
4. GOD ALLOWS ALL EVIL TO EXIST!
God takes full responsibility for the evil in this world…He did not create evil, but He allows it to point mankind to Himself. To a wicked king of Babylon whom God used to fulfill His purposes God said: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me….I form the light and create the darkness, I make peace and creat calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”
WE PRAISE HIM FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE TO CONQUER EVIL! The cross! If there was no evil to conquer there would be no cross, and no Saviour! In Romans 3:5 we read that “…our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God…” The evil that we do, the evil that happens, the natural, the moral and the supernatural evil points us to the righteousness of God.
The GOOD NEWS is that God has defeated all sin and death when He died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave on the 3rd day! It was His righteousness that sent Him to the cross to pay for my unrighteousness. To once again redeem not just man to Himself, but all of creation that has been under the curse since the fall of man. Though there is strife/evil/sickness decay and death in all of creation today…it is not for forever. “For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…”(Romans 8:18ff)
Though God did not create evil…He nevertheless allows it to happen. MAN HAS SINNED…but GOD IS SOVEREIGN…evil does not dictate to God what to do…GOD is the One who ALLOWS EVIL…natural…moral…supernatural Why? For His own glory! Our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God. One day He will redeem all things to Himself….creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption…and all evil will be done away with when He returns. There will be no more famine, child hunger…all evil done away!
Most people ask “Why?” From our youngest years where we are beginning to use the mind God gave us, there is a desire to understand cause and effect. Why something does or doesn’t happen, why something is the way it is. We have inquisitive minds…is a God designed and a very beautiful thing. But the challenge is for mankind to use that inquisitive mind to desire truth, not just good ideas, not just some prevailing ideology or popular opinion…but actual truth…(i.e. just because Oprah say so does not make it truth! This is what Ravi Zacharias terms“…mass marketed spirituality” R. Zacharias)
So when we are confronted with the reality of terrible things currently happening or maybe in the past…we ask “Why?”
- Why does this happen? Why does God allow terrible things to occur? Why does He allow suffering?
- Why do bad things happen to good people? (the problem with that is that there is no such thing as a good person)
- Why is there hunger in the world? Why are there children starving in various parts of the world?
- Why is there evil? Why is there ISIS?
- Why are there natural disasters that cause great carnage and devastation and unimaginable loss of life?
By the way…those who do not believe in the existence of God ask these same questions. They know something is just not right. For the ATHEIST…nothing can answer these questions. Why are children starving? Their answer… “why would there not be?” Why is there evil? “why not? For the professing atheist, with no higher authority to answer to…we are just a matter of chance, and if children are suffering…“C’est la vie!”…that’s life! In other words, we would have no reason to think that they shouldn’t be hungry. For the CHRISTIAN…on the other hand, many are afraid of these questions. Or we think we must limit God or try to defend God to explain why bad things happen. Sadly, many people use this as an excuse to reject or walk away from God because they do not like His answers. Others use these question to limit God or diminish God.
The question before us really is…a question about God’s character. It pre-supposes a belief in God…and that He is aware of mankind. And so if there is suffering God must be allowing it. If there is evil, then God is allowing that evil to happen. If bad things happen…then God must have a say in what happens. So the next question naturally becomes: Why does God allow human suffering? Why does God, who is a God of love…allow young children to starve to death or die of disease due to malnutrition? And finally, why does He not do something about it?
How could a loving God allow it? Many books have been written to try to explain what seems on the surface to be an irreconcilable problem… The Christian believer claims that God remains a God of love in the face of the evil, death, suffering and disease in this world. But if God is good and God is love…then why won’t He do something?…so He must not be as powerful as we think He is. Or maybe if God is truly all-powerful…and He chooses not to do anything…then how can He be a God of love and mercy?
Someone has said: that the major argument levelled against Christians goes something like this:
‘How can there be an all-powerful loving God when we see children dying, people suffering, and bad things happening to good people? Surely such suffering and evil means that either He is not powerful enough to prevent it or He doesn’t want to, so He is not totally good.”
First off let me say…God could eliminate hunger/evil if He so chose. Without a blink, He could. Jesus fed the 5000 and He healed diseases and even the most wicked demoniac. But why did He not obliterate hunger/evil/ when He walked on the earth? At one point in John 11 Judas criticized Mary for using an expensive perfume on Jesus when it could have been used to feed the poor/hungry…Jesus said “…the poor you will always have with you…”
In order to answer this question…we must go back to the root of it all and understand some foundational facts.
1.THE REALITY OF EVIL…
We often refer to evil as the bad things we see or read about in the news. Yet Theologians identify there is NATURAL EVIL…these are the destructive forces of nature.disasters, viruses, tornadoes, disease, earthquakes and famines…
- We are also very blessed to be living at this point in history when many of the diseases have been cured.
- There is also MORAL EVIL…this is often times man’s personal choice of selfishness, pride, sin…and this of course dominates the heart of man and is universal of the human race.
- It is in every human heart. There is none righteous no not one. Man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward.
- We could also add the SUPERNATURAL EVIL…Satan himself along with all of his evil demons, and all the spiritual realities that are perversely corrupt and lying and deceiving.
2. WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF EVIL/DISEASE/SICKNESS/HUNGER?
We must go back to creation…original design. In Genesis we have the first man, Adam, he represents the entire human race. When God created Adam, He gave Adam the entire Garden of Eden to live. God created everything in perfect working order. And He told Adam you got the Garden but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But then Adam chose to sin…when he ate of the tree to which God had clearly stated “Do not eat of that tree…” Adam rebelled against God, by disobeying His clear Word of instruction…in essence…Adam told God that he wanted life without God. He (and thus we) wanted autonomy…to be independent of God. By the way, man is still doing this today…rejecting God’s authority for his own autonomy/independence.
It is a sobering thought…that if God gave us what we really asked for in Adam…total independence…and God completely leaves the picture. We couldn’t even exist… as He is before all things and in Him all things consist … and that He “…holds all things together by the power of His Word…”.
As a righteous God, He had to judge rebellion…He judged sin with death (spiritual and physical). God cursed the ground…every weed you pull from your garden is a reminder of the curse…every natural disaster, malnourished child, every sickness, disease and death, every bee sting, every evil that has ever been committed… and as a result the entirety, the whole of creation now groans because of sin…
And by the way…God had every right to completely destroy Adam and Eve for their rebellion. He could have easily wiped them out and started again. But why didn’t He? Grace, God’s amazing grace! Now everything groans…things get old, bodies wear out and tend to get run down or fall apart. We actually live in a world where we have a taste of what life is like without God…every time we watch or read the news we are reminded of what life is like without God…the death, suffering, evil, etc. But here is some good news.
3. GOD IS SOVEREIGN…OVER EVIL…GOD IS IN CHARGE…ABSOLUTELY!
Just consider some of these passages as you slowly read over them. Ask yourself who is in control of evil?
- 1 Chronicles 29:11 “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all.”
- Lamentations 3:37-38 “Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well being proceed?”
- Psalm 115:3 “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”
- Daniel 4:35 “all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth no on can restrain His hand or say to Him, “What have You done?”
- Deuteronomy 32:39 “Now see that I, even I, am He and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.”
- Exodus 4:11 “So the Lord said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?”
- Psalm 105:16 “Moreover He (God) called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread.”
- 2 Kings 17:25 “And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.”
- 1 Samuel 2:6-8 “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lots up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory.”
- Amos 3:6 “If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?”
- Ephesians 1:11 “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will…”
4. GOD ALLOWS ALL EVIL TO EXIST!
God takes full responsibility for the evil in this world…He did not create evil, but He allows it to point mankind to Himself. To a wicked king of Babylon whom God used to fulfill His purposes God said: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me….I form the light and create the darkness, I make peace and creat calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”
WE PRAISE HIM FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE TO CONQUER EVIL! The cross! If there was no evil to conquer there would be no cross, and no Saviour! In Romans 3:5 we read that “…our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God…” The evil that we do, the evil that happens, the natural, the moral and the supernatural evil points us to the righteousness of God.
The GOOD NEWS is that God has defeated all sin and death when He died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave on the 3rd day! It was His righteousness that sent Him to the cross to pay for my unrighteousness. To once again redeem not just man to Himself, but all of creation that has been under the curse since the fall of man. Though there is strife/evil/sickness decay and death in all of creation today…it is not for forever. “For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…”(Romans 8:18ff)
Though God did not create evil…He nevertheless allows it to happen. MAN HAS SINNED…but GOD IS SOVEREIGN…evil does not dictate to God what to do…GOD is the One who ALLOWS EVIL…natural…moral…supernatural Why? For His own glory! Our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God. One day He will redeem all things to Himself….creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption…and all evil will be done away with when He returns. There will be no more famine, child hunger…all evil done away!
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